


you must know life to see decay

by dumbkili



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, F/F, M/M, Modern AU, Pining, Really Very Sad, completely deviates frm canon sorry uhh, ghost au, i didn't tag this as main character death but a main character is dead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-04 12:57:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6658933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dumbkili/pseuds/dumbkili
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The house sat on top of a small hill, surrounded by ragged woods that had probably started off much farther away. But, like the vines of ivy that grew up its walls, the trees had advanced on the building with time. It was old, with the strange blockiness and simplicity of houses that were most definitely built by the people who had first lived in them. In fact, the house was older than the very country it was in. The front steps were warped and crooked, and the white paint along the outside was peeling and faded. It wasn’t a big house, but there was enough floor space spread across three stories that some owner or another had been able to gut the whole thing and renovate it into three modestly priced one bedroom apartments.</p>
<p>Caleb Brewster, newly returned from college and up to his ears in debt, didn’t really care about the house itself. All he cared about was that it was cheap, and that it was far enough away from the main town of Setauket that he wouldn’t have to talk to anyone he didn’t want to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. bugs and dirt

**Author's Note:**

> turn season 3 is here
> 
> nice

The house sat on top of a small hill, surrounded by ragged woods that had probably started off much farther away. But, like the vines of ivy that grew up its walls, the trees had advanced on the building with time. It was old, with the strange blockiness and simplicity of houses that were most definitely built by the people who had first lived in them. In fact, the house was older than the very country it was in. The front steps were warped and crooked, and the white paint along the outside was peeling and faded. It wasn’t a big house, but there was enough floor space spread across three stories that some owner or another had been able to gut the whole thing and renovate it into three modestly priced one bedroom apartments.

 

Caleb Brewster, newly returned from college and up to his ears in debt, didn’t really care about the house itself. All he cared about was that it was cheap, and that it was far enough away from the main town of Setauket that he wouldn’t have to talk to anyone he didn’t want to. 

 

...Except for his new neighbors, apparently.

 

“You’re Caleb, right?” asked a dark haired woman sitting on the front porch railing. Sunlight glinted off the silver bracelets on her wrist.

 

He looked at her from where he was standing in the front yard, duffel bag slung over his shoulder and suitcase at his feet.  She was on the shorter side, pretty, hair pulled up into a messy bun and jeans torn at the knee. Vaguely familiar, somehow. He nodded once, slowly. The sounds of the taxi that had driven him here faded away into the distance. 

 

“Yeah.” A bit gruff, maybe, but he'd had a long drive and he was  _tired_. 

 

“I’m Anna,” she said, then jerked her thumb back over her shoulder to the man on the porch swing behind her. “That’s Abe.”

 

“Nice to meet you,” Caleb said politely, then moved to pick up his suitcase. “Uh, so if you don’t mind-”

 

“Hang on,” interrupted Abe, standing and moving to lean over the porch railing. “You’re Caleb Brewster, yeah? Didn’t you use to live around here?”

 

Caleb, realizing he’d somehow been roped into an actual conversation, nodded again. “Yeah, grew up around here actually.” Then the penny dropped. “Wait, you’re Abe Woodhull! Which means you’re  _ that _ Anna-” He cut himself off. She was  _ that _ Anna. And he was  _ that _ Abe. The ones who were constantly trying to eat each other’s faces off in the stairwells of the high school. 

 

“What do you mean by  _ that _ Anna?” asked  _ that _ Anna, frowning. Caleb floundered for a second, then saved himself.

 

“I mean, you two sat behind me in Chemistry class. I just. Just remembered that.” He scratched his chin absentmindedly and wondered if they were still together. Judging by the way Anna was leaning slightly away from Abe and how he kept sneaking tiny glances at her out of the corner of his eye, the answer was probably no. “Anyway! I’m just gonna go and unpack now, you know, lots to do-”

 

“Is that all you brought?” Anna asked incredulously. “It’s an apartment. Not a two week vacation at summer camp.”

 

“The owner said the apartment was furnished already,” Caleb shrugged. “I just brought, like, clothes and things.”  _ Not like I had the money for much else. _

 

“Well, let us give you a tour at least,” said Anna, clearly still troubled by his lack of possessions. “Abe, help him with his bags.”

 

“What?”

 

“ _ Help him _ ,” she repeated, and punctuated it with an elbow to the ribs. Abe rubbed his side in annoyance but still came down the steps and began dragging Caleb’s (overstuffed) suitcase inside the house. Anna followed, gloriously unburdened by either luggage or the realization that the whole encounter had been extremely awkward so far. Or maybe, thought Caleb as he brought up the rear, she knew and just didn’t care.

 

“Top floor, right?” she chirped, and Abe groaned quietly. 

 

“You really don’t have to do this,” Caleb insisted. He was a grown man. He could carry his own shit. “I’m a grown man. I can carry my own shit.”

 

“We’re being polite. Shut up and accept it,” said Anna. Abe made a vague sound of agreement as he heaved the suitcase up the first flight of steps. Anna and Caleb followed, but since the staircase was so narrow they couldn’t pass by him, and the whole thing took much longer than it should have. Out of some need to fill the silence (or to drown out Abe’s grunts)  Anna began pointing out things about the house that Caleb hadn’t asked and did not care about.

 

“I’m on the second floor, and the first one is Abe’s. One bathroom, one ‘kitchen’,” (here she made air quotes, which did not bode well for any culinary adventures Caleb wasn’t ever going to have anyway), “One bedroom. This place is  _ super _ old, if you care about that sort of thing, so the layout’s a little weird.”

 

Caleb made a vague sound of interest, which was faked.

 

“Yeah,” continued Anna and Abe huffed and puffed his way on to the next flight of stairs, “It was built by some reverend or something in the 1700s. Pre-war days.” A floorboard creaked and a bit of dust fell down from the ceiling above their heads. She shook it out of her hair absently.

 

“Is someone upstairs?” Caleb asked, confused. “I thought it was just you and Abe that lived here.”

 

“Well, yeah, it’s just us that  _ live _ here,” she replied in a faux-mysterious voice, like an actress in a film noir. She dropped the act at his raised eyebrow and laughed a bit. “Sorry, it’s just a joke between us. That this old place is haunted. I don’t put much stock into it, but Abe’s  _ really _ superstitious.”

 

“Am  _ not _ ,” came an irritated voice from ahead of them.

 

“You are,” said Anna without missing a beat. “You throw salt over your shoulder when you spill it.”

 

“That’s not superstition,” Abe insisted, yanking the suitcase up the last few steps. “That’s common sense.”

 

“Whatever.” Anna rolled her eyes. “The point is, Caleb, that this house is really old. And it’s creaky. And Abe is scared of the dark, so he decided that there’s a ghost here or something.”

 

“I’m telling you, I  _ saw _ something!” Abe exclaimed, seemingly unable to let it go. “A face in the mirror that- that wasn’t my own!”

 

“Right, yeah, okay, you did,” agreed Anna, the way someone agrees with a small child. She hopped up onto the landing and gestured for Caleb to do the same, even though it was already a tight fit with two adults and a suitcase. “C’mon, Caleb. You should be the one to open the door first, right?”

 

“Isn’t it locked?” Caleb asked, squeezing onto the landing. 

 

“Nah. Front door downstairs has a pretty sick padlock on it, and there’s nothing in there worth stealing anyway,” replied Abe. He was sweating.

 

Caleb raised an eyebrow. “You guys are the height of security, aren’t you.”

 

“Just open the door already,” said Anna. So he did.

 

The apartment, at first glance, was ordinary. Drab, maybe. Nearly empty, yes. Dull, cheap, and uninteresting, definitely. But it wasn’t the sight of the ratty sofa or the water-warped hardwood that made Caleb take a step back as the door swung open. It was the air. 

 

He’d never felt air that was  _ heavy _ before, but this was, somehow. It had a physical weight, settling on his shoulders like a heavy load. The smell of something strange and dusty and dead. It took him a second before he realized where he’d smelled that before. He’d taken a semester abroad during his sophomore year of college and traveled to Paris, France. He still couldn’t speak French for shit, but he’d had a great time sightseeing. He’d gone to the Paris catacombs once (and only once). The sight of the bare skulls and bones had been a little unsettling, but the smell was what had got to him. Dirt and rot. That was where he’d smelled it before, and now it had followed him to Setauket. The apartment smelled like a tomb. 

 

“Yuck. Nobody’s been here in a  _ long _ time,” muttered Anna, holding her nose and peering into the dark apartment. “Well! It was nice to meet you, Caleb! Or meet you again, I guess. Bye!” 

 

“Yeah Caleb, it was great to catch-  _ Ow, Anna _ \- okay, bye!” said Abe, and bolted down the stairs after Anna, rubbing his arm where she’d pinched him.

 

“Yeesh,” Caleb murmured to himself, stepping into the apartment. “Those two have some shit to work out.”

 

Unpacking took all of fifteen minutes, which was partially due to him not having that much to unpack in the first place and partially because he didn’t care about “folding” clothes or “organizing” his possessions. And once he was done with that, there was nothing else left except to stand in the middle of his frankly depressing apartment and wonder what the ever living fuck he was doing. 

 

Look at him. Fresh out of college with a marine biology degree he didn’t know how to use, literally forty-five dollars and twenty-seven cents to his name once the safety deposit cleared, no job, no friends (unless you counted the ex-lovebirds downstairs), and a dead uncle. Fantastic. Just swell. Perfect.

 

He sat down on the couch, which creaked alarmingly, and opened his computer, only to remember that he didn’t have a wifi router yet. 

 

“This sucks.” He snapped the laptop closed and leaned back on the couch to look at the ceiling. It was cracked. “This sucks!”   
  


There was a creaking sound from the hallway behind him, like someone stepping lightly on a loose floorboard. He whipped around, ready to tell off whatever squatter or animal that was creeping around his house, but there was nothing there. Only the smell like the Paris catacombs, and a feeling in the air like loss. 

 

“Right. Okay. No thank you,” said Caleb bluntly, levering himself off the couch. “I’m not dealing with this right now.” He grabbed his coat from where he’d tossed it on the kitchen counter and left the apartment, shutting and locking the door behind him. “Goodbye, creepy apartment. Hello… shitty small town.”

 

Leaves crunched under his feet as he made his way towards the heart of the town. It was late September, almost too early for leaves to be falling, and the sky was gray. That was Long Island for you. He’d delayed coming back for as long as he could; traveled for a few months after college, using up all his savings to sleep in shitty motels and see the wonders of the world. He hadn’t wanted to come back, but there was nowhere else to go. Parents dead. Nobody else in the world who would take him. He didn’t know what else to do.

 

His uncle had died in the spring. It was sudden, unexpected- a random shooting. The guy who did it, a mugger, had been arrested and charged. Nobody left to blame. It had been in Setauket. The first actual murder in at least twenty years. Caleb had gotten the call when he was in a Starbucks on campus, and promptly collapsed. And now, he was back. To do what, exactly, he didn’t know. Find answers? Find peace?

 

Mostly what he wanted to find was a place that sold wifi routers.

 

The hardware store didn't, but they did sell plaster to fix the cracks in his ceiling, so that’s where he went. The man behind the counter was nice enough, and Caleb recognized him in a vague, second-hand kind of way. He hadn’t exactly been hanging out in the hardware store a lot when he was in high school. 

 

“You new in town?” the guy asked. Caleb shrugged.

 

“Used to live here.”

 

“You looking for work?”

 

Caleb considered the offer. “Here?”

 

The man shook his head. “Nah, I can’t spare the money for another paycheck. But the museum is hiring. Told me to ask around and see if anyone’s interested.”

 

“I’m not exactly a historian.”  _ I’m supposed to be studying whales right now. _

 

The man slid Caleb's purchases into a plastic bag. “You don’t need to be. Just check it out. They’ll give you something to do.”

  
“Thanks for the tip, man,” said Caleb, and left. The wind was picking up across the sound, blowing a chill into the streets and forcing him to zip up his jacket. The sun was dipping down over the treetops. Caleb considered the walk to the museum, which would be cold, and the walk back, which would be dark and cold, and decided that getting a job could wait a day. Even if his apartment was creepy as shit, it was warmer than outside, and he’d take it.


	2. dust and blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It smelled of blood and gunpowder when he died.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for some discussion of death and fatal injuries
> 
> how bout that season premiere tho

It smelled of blood and gunpowder when he died.

 

One shot, clean through the chest, missing his heart and puncturing a lung. They’d carried him back to his father’s house (a complete coincidence, it was near the church) and he’d died there, choking on iron and battlefield smoke.

 

He hadn’t see a light or anything. Nothing so poetic. Just some soldier’s face, streaked with blood (whose?) and the ceiling above him. The sound of gunfire in the distance. Calls for retreat. It was hard to focus, hard to breathe, hard to think. The only thing running through his mind was the realization that this was _it._ He was dying.

 

All because of fucking _Simcoe_.

 

Ben Tallmadge died in the same house he was born in, during the Battle of Setauket in 1777. He woke up the next day as they buried his body. He couldn’t quite see the churchyard, not even from the highest windows of the house, but he knew what had happened when his father came back home with graveyard dirt under his nails and empty eyes.

 

It had really sunk in then. He was dead. Gone but not gone. Hanging around for some reason or another, kept on Earth by some gigantic cosmic joke. Why? What was his purpose? To get revenge on Simcoe? No way to do that- he’d been hauled off somewhere, screaming bloody murder (quite literally), and the awkward but sympathetic note Major Hewlett had sent to his father spoke of severe disciplinary action.

 

_I am sorry for the loss of your son_ , it said in neat, curly script. _While we had deeply opposing political ideologies, he seemed like a man of honor. May he rest in peace._

 

Ben crumpled the letter into a ball as he read it and tossed it back on the desk. He got mad, smashing a plate carelessly, slamming doors upstairs and downstairs. The next morning his father checked the locks on the doors and windows, confused at the apparent break-in. He stopped touching things after that.

 

_Rest in peace_. That was what he was entitled to, wasn’t it? Peace. Heaven, maybe. His father was a reverend- didn’t that count for something? Should he really be here, stuck in between two worlds, unable to go forward or back?

 

If there was a God, he thought to himself (and he was losing faith that there was every day), maybe He’d simply lost the name _Benjamin Tallmadge_ somewhere. Maybe his fate had slipped, like a piece of paper blown by the wind, into some crack in a floorboard or the space between a desk and a wall. Maybe he’d get found soon, and taken to where he needed to go.

 

He wasn’t.

 

Winter turned to spring turned to summer turned to fall, and he was still there. Major Hewlett was kidnapped and returned and he was still there. The Battle of Yorktown was fought and he was still there. The war was won (the war was _won_ ) and he was still there. Washington sent his father a letter of condolence far too many years too late and Ben. Was still. There.

 

His father died of old age, which was a blessing in its way. It wasn’t a bullet to the lung, for one. Ben watched as he signed his will with shaking hands, gave himself his Last Rites since there was no one else to do it, lay down in bed. He was alone, or believed he was. Ben thought for a minute that maybe this was his salvation- maybe this was what he had been waiting for all these years.

 

It wasn’t. His father died and didn’t wake up and Ben nudged the front door open so the neighbors would know something was wrong. It still took them three days to find him.

 

The house was sold and bought and sold again and the Civil War began and was won and Ben heard about everything years too late because he couldn’t _fucking_ leave. Families moved in and out and children played in the very spot where he’d died and other people died in that house, too, but none of them became like him. He was still there, and he was alone.

 

In the 1960s a college student lived in the house over the summer, writing her thesis for her American History degree. Ben leaned over her shoulder while she sat at the typewriter and couldn’t believe his eyes when she mentioned the spy ring- _his_ spy ring- that was instrumental in winning the Revolutionary War. Sackett must have continued it after his death. God bless that man. The woman shivered suddenly, pulling her sweater tighter around herself, and Ben stepped back. He’d forgotten for a minute in his excitement that his legacy was alive but he was very much not.

 

They renovated the house. Split the inside up into tiny, cramped apartments, only big enough for one person or two if they were close. The tenants cycled in and out, nobody staying for long. The house was too cold, or too creaky, or too dusty, or too dark. Ben bristled at the implication- and sometimes the outright admittance- that the house his father had built and the house his whole family had died in was imperfect, unfit for use. If they didn’t like the house, why were they there at all?

 

He got bitter. He swung the front door open and let in cold air and animals. The super installed locks. He hid the fuse box by pushing a bookshelf in front of it. The tenants pushed it back. He left the lights on, blew the electricity bills through the roof. The tenants switched to energy efficient lightbulbs. He gave up. So did the tenants, eventually. They all moved out whether he did anything or not.

 

When Abe and Anna moved in, he barely noticed. He stayed on the top floor, where nobody had lived for several years running, and stared out at the church steeple over the trees. Not the same church steeple. Rebuilt, sometime in the last century. Typical of the living. They were always trying to change things that didn’t need changing.

 

He could hear them arguing after a little while- a few weeks. Loudly. Seemed Abe was looking to end whatever thing they had going in favor of another girl. A Mary. Interesting. He came downstairs for the first time in months (possibly- time was hard to keep track of) and watched them shout at each other in the second floor apartment’s kitchen.

 

“This month’s rent check literally _just_ got cashed,” Anna was saying. Her hands were curled into fists, painted red nails digging semicircles into her palms. “And you’re breaking up with me.”

 

“I… I’m sorry, Anna, but what else do you want me to do?” asked Abe. Ben narrowed his eyes at him, even though neither of them could see him. Did this guy even know how ridiculous he sounded?

 

“I want you to have a fucking spine for once! If you’ve liked her for this long, why’d you wait until now?” Abe moved to answer, but Anna cut him off with a look. “It was a rhetorical _fucking_ question, Abraham. I don’t need to hear all the excuses you’ll use to disguise your cowardice.”

 

Ben whistled to himself, long and low and impressed. This lady didn’t fuck around. Abe looked like he didn’t quite know what to do. Ben didn’t blame him, but also held little sympathy for him. This was the most entertainment he’d had since before he’d died. Anna took a deep breath in the silence, visibly stifling the fire in her eyes and turning her voice to ice.

 

“Get out, Abe.”

 

“What?”

 

“I said get out. Move downstairs or upstairs if there’s no other place for you to go. I don’t care. You can’t live here anymore.”

 

“Don’t move upstairs,” said Ben quietly.

 

“Okay. Okay, that’s fair,” said Abe quietly. “I’m… I’m going now.”

 

He left, and didn’t come back. Anna, for her part, moved on. Ben was constantly amazed at how adaptable living people were. He had been dead now for around ten times his lifetime over, and he was still exactly the same. Same fears. Same hopes. Same behaviors and nervous ticks. But in a few weeks, Anna transformed herself into someone else entirely- someone who didn’t need Abraham Woodhull.

 

He showed back up on the porch steps three months later.

 

“She broke up with me. I’m moving in downstairs.”

 

“Hmm,” said Anna, and let him in. Ben watched, amused, as they slowly rebuilt their friendship- watched too closely, maybe. The two of them began to notice what people living in the house usually didn’t. The pockets of cold air. The creak of floorboards where nobody was standing. Abe caught a glimpse of Ben in a mirror once and shrieked loudly enough for Anna to rush downstairs holding a butcher knife and looking for the serial killer.

 

“It- there was a guy- tall- there was blood- fuck, Anna, I think this house is haunted,” Abe stammered as she helped him stand up from where he’d fallen.

 

“What?! Abe,” she began, but he shook his head frantically.

 

“I know what I saw.”

 

Ben stayed upstairs after that. He wasn’t looking for any attention- just an end to his boredom. Because being dead, once the novelty wore off, _was_ boring. It really was. Just a lot of sitting around, staring at walls, remembering things. Turning on the sink and running up the water bill just because he could. Stuff like that. Abe and Anna were _interesting_ , and he didn’t want to drive them away. So he stayed upstairs, where he couldn’t bother anyone.

 

Until someone moved in.

 

He heard them all coming up the stairs and cursed quietly to himself, several times. He could hear Anna’s voice, and Abe laboriously carrying something up the stairs (a suitcase, probably), but the new person was strangely quiet. He took a step back, away from the door, and a floorboard creaked under his foot. Shit.

 

“Is someone upstairs? I thought it was just you and Abe that lived here.”

 

“Well, yeah, it’s just us that _live_ here.”

 

Ben winced. Great. So not only was this person going to be living on the top floor, they would already be semi-aware of him, even if they didn’t believe in ghosts. So much for not bothering anyone.

 

The door swung open, and there was a moment of silence from the three living people as they took in the apartment. Ben supposed it probably wasn’t pretty. Cobwebs. Bad hardwood. He was pretty sure a rat had died somewhere in the walls.

 

“Well! It was nice to meet you, Caleb! Or meet you again, I guess. Bye!”

 

“Yeah Caleb, it was great to catch- _Ow, Anna_ \- okay, bye!”

 

His name was Caleb. He was practically a full head shorter than Ben and looked twice as world-weary. He was moving into an apartment with only two bags of stuff. He owned one kind of socks. He didn’t turn lights on when he went into rooms.

 

“You’re very weird,” Ben informed him after a few minutes of watching Caleb throw t-shirts and jeans haphazardly into dresser drawers. “At least fold them.”

 

Caleb did not fold them. He opted instead to stand in the center of the living room for a few seconds, apparently at a loss, before flopping down onto the couch and opening a thing metal thing that Ben had to constantly remind himself was called a computer. Apparently something was wrong with it, however, and he instantly closed it again with a groan.

 

“This sucks.”

 

Ben leaned against the wall behind him, careful not to fall through it. “Agreed.”

 

“This sucks!”

 

Ben shifted slightly, folding his arms. “I _know_.”

 

Suddenly, as if in response to that comment, Caleb whipped around. Ben froze, eyes wide, startled, but Caleb’s eyes skirted right over him. _He can’t see me,_ he reminded himself. Nobody should be able to see him. Or hear him. And he didn’t think he’d made that much noise. This guy was sharp. Alert. It would be hard to pull any shit over on him.

 

“Right. Okay. No thank you.” Caleb was gone before Ben even knew what had happened, the lock clicking behind him.

 

“What?” Ben asked the empty apartment. It didn’t answer him. He felt… confused. Thrown off. In the span of twenty minutes, this man had totally shattered every routine Ben had had for two hundred years. _Maybe he isn’t staying for long,_ he thought, and he only half hoped he was right. Caleb was weird, but interesting. Possibly more so than Abe and Anna. There was a lot more to him than met the eye. A secret, maybe. A backstory.

 

He looked at the things Caleb had laid out across the kitchen counter. Not clothes or decorations, really, just random pieces of life that he didn’t know what to do with yet. An old compass. A high school diploma from the school in Setauket. A college diploma from a college in a state Ben was only vaguely aware even existed.

 

“Who are you, Caleb Brewster?” he asked out loud, setting down an old Liberty head coin, probably worth triple its original value at the right pawnshop. “What are you doing here?”

 

Half an hour later, Caleb returned with a bag from the hardware store, which he dumped out onto the couch and then proceeded to ignore in favor of collapsing into bed.

 

“I’m going to sleep now,” he announced. “And if there’s anything in here that’s gonna try and murder me, I’d really appreciate it if you could hold off until I get some damn rest.”

  
“Duly noted,” said Ben, and went downstairs to watch Storage Wars with Abe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments & feedback always appreciated !
> 
> also idk how long i can keep up the daily updates bc im going on a college tour with my school frm thursday-friday and then i have a dance performance over the weekend but im gonna do my best ofc


	3. work and rot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Let’s go get a job. Or something. Fuck, I don’t know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for the struggle under late capitalism in america

Caleb woke up at the crack of dawn because the sun was shining in his eyes.  _ Should buy some curtains _ , he thought, irritated, and then remembered that he didn’t have any money, which led to remembering the advice that the man in the hardware store had given him. 

 

“Okay,” he said to himself, rolling out of bed. “Let’s go get a job. Or something. Fuck, I don’t know.” 

 

He got dressed and wandered out into the living room, which was also the kitchen, since there wasn’t really any walls dividing the two sections- just a counter. In the dawn light, the apartment looked less foreboding. Dark corners revealed themselves, and the air of gloom lessened considerably. It was also easier to see how truly shitty and run down the place was.

 

He stood in the kitchen for a few moments, halfheartedly opening and closing cabinets in the hope that maybe, just maybe, he’d actually bought some food yesterday and just didn’t remember. He hadn’t. Which led to him going downstairs to talk with his new neighbors yet again. He didn’t dare knock on Anna’s door and risk waking her up, but Abe seemed like the sort of guy who’d help a friend out- or at least, could be guilt tripped into doing so.

 

“Woody!” Caleb cried as the door swung open on the tenth or twelfth knock. “What’s up?”

 

Abe squinted at him for a second. “I haven’t been called that since high school. What’dya want, Caleb, it’s fucking...” He looked behind himself at the stove clock in his kitchen. “...It’s 5:30 in the morning.” There was a dullness to his voice, like his life had reached a new low point and was now completely beyond his control.

 

“Can I borrow a cup of sugar? Or coffee? Or like, a dozen eggs?” asked Caleb, stepping neatly inside the apartment. Abe let him in without protest.

 

“What… makes you think I just have a dozen…. eggs?” replied Abe blearily. He yawned twice in the middle of his sentence. “I exist off of coffee and cereal, man.”

 

“Then just coffee’s fine, I guess,” Caleb said, and leaned on the kitchen counter that was identical to his own upstairs. He looked around absently. Abe’s apartment seemed much nicer than his- it certainly didn’t have that Paris-catacomb smell that bothered him so much. He opened his mouth to comment on it before something caught his eye. “Whoa, Woody, do you have someone over?”

 

“What?” said Abe, not turning around. “No.”

 

“Why’re there two pairs of shoes by the door, then?”

 

“Can’t a man have two pairs of shoes?”

 

“They’re blatantly different sizes, Woodhull.”

 

Abe still didn’t turn around, taking an unnecessary amount of time making the coffee. Caleb watched in amusement.

 

“How come you don’t have eggs but you have a Keurig coffee maker?”

 

“How come you invite yourself into other people’s homes and make comments about their possessions?” Abe fired back. He finally turned around and gave Caleb a mug of jet black coffee. “And I don’t have anyone over. So there.”

 

“There’s two plates in the sink.” Abe turned as red as a tomato at that and Caleb decided to take pity on him, instead considering the coffee in his hand. “Black coffee. Really.”

 

“Find the milk yourself,” was the curt reply. Caleb shrugged and took a sip. If Abe was gonna be pissy about a little teasing, that was his problem to deal with. He could drink black coffee. He was tough. He’d be fine. 

 

It was terrible.

 

“This is terrible,” he informed Abe after a moment’s recovery. “I truly mean that.”

 

Abe looked like he was about to have an aneurysm. A very tired, self-contained aneurysm. “Caleb. Please just drink the fucking coffee and leave.”

 

“You got it boss,” said Caleb, and gulped the rest of it down. It tasted like motor oil and burned off all of his taste buds, but hey, it had looked pretty damn cool. He winced slightly and pushed away the counter towards the door. “Tell your boyfriend I said hi.”

 

“Fuck you.”

 

Caleb laughed quietly as the door clicked shut behind him. This day was starting off pretty well. Good weather, terrible coffee, a possible job on the horizon. He still missed his uncle, missed him so much it hurt, like there was a hole punch straight through his chest. But somehow just being back in Setauket was healing that hole, and he already felt stronger, more capable of taking on whatever life had to throw at him. He’d always bounced back quickly. 

 

There was no way the museum was open yet, so he wandered around town, seeing what had changed in his absence. There were a few new memorial benches lining the streets, and a couple of antique stores he’d never seen before. The sun glittered off the water by the docks in the distance, and the wind brought with it the unmistakeable scent of the water. Caleb stood at the edge of the pier and looked out across the sound. He was back. For better or worse, he was back.

 

The museum was an old building- not quite as old as the house Caleb was staying in, but still built well over a century ago. Still, the inside was clean and relatively modern, and Caleb felt a little bit out of place as he approached the front desk.

 

“Hi, what can I help you with today?” asked the woman at the front desk. She had blonde hair and a name tag that read  _ Mary- Reception _ . 

 

“Uh. Hi. I heard that there was a job offer out?”

 

She nodded immediately, and Caleb relaxed a bit. “Right, yes. Abigail is looking for some new tour guides.” She handed him a packet. “That’s the application. You can fill it out and just give it right back to me, okay?”

 

“Oh. Okay. Thank you,” he said, and stepped aside so that she could speak to the woman and her child waiting in line behind him. He flipped through the papers. There was a section for references- he could email some of his old college professors, maybe? If Anna or Abe let him use their wifi- and a section for past work experience, and a section for practically everything else he could think of, and some stuff he couldn’t. He groaned quietly. Did he even know his Social Security number? He was pretty sure he did. He might know it. Maybe. Getting a job was  _ hard _ , and he hadn’t even technically started yet. It wasn’t even the first real job he’d had. He’d worked his way through college, and a little bit through high school, too. But there had never been this much pressure before. The safety net of his uncle’s support was gone, and if he couldn’t find a job soon, he’d be in serious shit. 

 

He filled out the paperwork.

 

“Thanks so much,” said Mary with a warm smile as he gave it all back to her. “I’ll give this a look-over soon, and after lunch you can meet with Abby and see what she thinks of you.”

 

“Wait, really?” asked Caleb. “That’s… fast.”

 

“We’re pretty understaffed right now,” she explained. “Between you and me, I think Abby’s kinda desperate for some extra help.”

 

“Well, I’m happy to, uh, help, then.” She smiled at him again but before she could reply, her phone began to ring. 

 

“Ugh, sorry, gotta take this.” She tapped the screen and listened to whoever was on the other end intently. “Babe,” she said after a few seconds. “Babe, slow down… That’s better. What? Tell him to mind his own business. If he has a problem than he can just…” 

 

Caleb backed away from the conversation out of politeness and she waved to him as he walked out of the building and back into the morning sunshine. He grabbed a bag of chips as a snack and ate it slowly to kill time, then went back into the museum.

 

Abigail, it turned out, was the senior tour guide of the museum, and in charge of the entire department. She was kind, and had a nice smile, and showed him a picture of her son Cicero. But she also had a strength to her, an undeniable aura that said  _ I know what I am doing _ . Caleb liked her instantly.

 

“So, how long have you been living here?” she asked him. They were walking around the museum as opposed to conducting the interview in an office, which was unexpected, but nice. 

 

Caleb shrugged. “Depends, kind of. I grew up here, but I’ve only technically been back a day.”

 

“Oh! A local, then,” said Abby, clearly pleased. “Welcome back, then. Where are you staying?”

 

“A sort of apartment complex by the church,” he replied. “Old, white. My neighbor says it’s pre-Revolutionary War.”

 

“Wow, really?” She seemed genuinely interested. “You know, I wonder if that’s the Tallmadge house.”

 

“Tallmadge house?”

 

She nodded. “Yeah, old place built by a reverend in the 1700s. It’s supposed to be a protected historical building. Should have a blue plaque near it somewhere.”

 

He frowned, thinking. “Maybe there is. That’s pretty cool, though. What’s the story with it?”

 

“We actually have an exhibit that could tell you,” she said. “Why don’t you check it out after we’re done here? It’s on the second floor. Just follow the signs.”

 

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”

 

The rest of the interview was pretty normal.  _ What are your strengths? Your weaknesses? Would you say you work well with others? Can you think on your feet? _ He warned her that he wasn’t a historian, but she said that would be okay. They’d give him a script to work off of and he could do some research on the side to fill in the gaps if he wanted to. The pay was modest, but not minimum wage, and that was good enough for him. She shook his hand at the end of the conversation and said they’d be in touch. Something in her eyes told him he’d already got the job. 

 

He followed the signs to the exhibit, which was simply called  _ The Battle of Setauket _ . He kinda remembered spending a few days on that in middle school. It was the town’s one claim to fame. What did his house have to do with it?

 

He skimmed through the first few informational signs and artifacts- a cannonball, a musket, a Redcoat uniform- and stopped when the name name Tallmadge caught his eye.

 

_ Major Benjamin Tallmadge (1754-1777) was a native of Setauket and a member of the Continental Army. For a brief time before his death, he was head of the Intelligence branch and served directly under General George Washington. He is credited partially with the creation of the Culper Spy Ring, though he died before it was in full swing. He led the rebel charge on the British officers stationed in Setauket and was shot by John Graves Simcoe, a redcoat. He was carried away from the battlefield and died minutes later in his childhood home, which has since been designated a historical site (though it remains in use). He was the highest ranking officer to be killed in the battle on either side. The Tallmadge family has no living descendents. _

 

There was a portrait of a young man in military uniform, a photograph of Caleb’s house from the outside, and a metal thing labeled as “a Light Dragoon helmet, belonging to Major Tallmadge.” Caleb raised an eyebrow at it and tried to imagine just  _ walking _ with that on his head, let alone fighting a battle with it. He couldn’t. 

 

“Guy was hardcore,” he muttered. “But cool.” He was about to turn away when he looked at the lifespan dates again, running the math in his head quickly. _Shit. Twenty-three years old._ _That’s how old I am_ now _._ He always hated seeing dead people his age. Reminded him of mortality and shit. He turned away from the exhibit and decided he was going to go home and charge his phone so he wouldn’t miss when Abby called him.

 

Except he couldn’t get into his apartment. Abraham Woodhull was sitting in front of his door.

 

“Uh… Woody?” he said, hesitantly, and Abe jumped to his feet.

 

“Caleb! Thank god, I was starting to think you weren’t gonna come back.”

 

“I live here.”

 

“Yeah, well, whatever,” said Abe, waving the comment aside. “Anyways, I need to talk to you about something, okay?”

 

“...Okay.”

 

“I think my ex-girlfriends are dating each other.”

 

“...What.”

 

“Anna and Mary. My ex-girlfriends. Are dating each other.” He looked extremely bothered by this revelation. Caleb, remembering the nice woman at the museum’s front desk and the way her eyes had lit up when her phone rang, didn’t share the same feelings.

 

“Good for them, then. Best wishes and all that. ‘Scuse me-” he said politely, pushing past Abe and unlocking his door.

 

“This is a disaster!” cried Abe.

 

“For you, maybe,” replied Caleb, and clicked the door shut. Immediately, his phone rang. He answered it. “How’d you get this number?”

 

“It hasn’t changed since high school apparently,” said Abe from the other side of the door. “C’mon man, help me out here.”

 

“I don’t see what the problem is. They’re dating each other. So what?” Caleb tossed his keys on the coffee table and dropped his coat on a chair.

 

“They’re my exes!” Abe exclaimed, like that explained it all. “They’ve joined forces!” His voice was loud enough to be heard through both the phone and the door.

 

“Or they’re two young women in love,” Caleb said, in what he thought was a very reasonable tone of voice. “Besides, I thought we established that you’re dating someone too.”

 

“Listen, Rob’s  _ not _ my boyfriend-”

 

“Oh, his name is Rob, that’s nice-”

 

“Shut  _ up _ okay the point is that… that…” Abe trailed off. Caleb rolled his eyes.

 

“The point is that you don’t  _ have _ a point, Abe. Let them be happy together! Go make out with your not-boyfriend Rob or whatever, I don’t care. Just don’t get hung up on shit that isn’t your business, you know?” Caleb sat down on the couch to untie his shoes, waiting for Abe’s response.

 

The connection went staticky for a moment (strange, since they were so close together), but Caleb could still make out the words. “...Good advice.” 

 

“Thanks man,” he replied, proud of himself. It wasn’t every day someone said he was good at something.

 

“What?” Abe said from the other end of the line. “Thanks for what?”

 

Caleb frowned. “You said ‘good advice’, so I thanked you.”

 

“Uh... no I didn’t. I… didn’t say anything,” said Abe slowly. “Are you alright, man?”

 

“Yeah, I think so. This phone is… old… maybe it just… I don’t know. I’ll talk to you later.” He hung up and tossed the phone on the couch beside him like it was dangerous, eyeing it carefully. It appeared to be, for all intents and purposes, a normal smartphone. Slightly older than most models out there, but serviceable. It had never acted up like that before.

 

There was that smell again, like Parisian bones. He stood up, a flurry of motion, and threw open all the windows in the house, letting in the cold air and fresher smell of the Long Island Sound. He looked at the phone again, which was still doing a damn fine job of being perfectly ordinary and innocent.

  
“This fucking house is driving me crazy,” he muttered, and plugged it in to charge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks @ washingtonspies / schuylerelizas again bc i couldnt remember when ben got promoted to major
> 
> daily updates might not exactly continue after this bc of aforementioned college trip
> 
> i. am dying.


	4. love and loss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I believe we said best out of three.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ya might notice i changed the tags on this work so that shld give you an idea of where this trainwreck is headed

There was nothing good on TV that night. Ben watched, bored to death (haha), as Abe flicked through Storage Wars, then Ancient Aliens, then some neo-evangelical talk show nonsense, then back to Storage Wars. It wasn’t even a very good episode. None of the boxes had anything in them, and the bidders all lost hundreds of dollars. 

 

“I will never understand television,” said Ben conversationally. Abe, incredibly, did not respond. Instead, he rubbed his eyes tiredly and looked at the clock, trying to judge if it was too early for a grown man to go to bed. 

 

There was a knock at the door.

 

Both Ben and Abe jumped a little bit (and one of them, no naming names, squeaked). There was a moment where nobody moved, confusion mounting in both the living and the dead. Abe did not have friends who knocked on his door. He had Anna, who would have just walked right in, and Caleb, who was asleep. Ben had no idea who it could possibly be, and it seemed like Abe was no better off.

 

The knock came again, more impatiently this time. Abe scrambled to his feet and paused the TV, tying his hair back quickly while he walked to the door.

 

“Jesus, man, hang on I’m-  _ ow _ ,” he called, cutting himself off as his toe slammed into the coffee table. “Okay, who the fuck-” He swung open the door and froze. Ben leaned around him to see who he was looking at- a guy about his own age, with redder hair and the attitude of someone who cannot believe they are doing what they are doing.

 

“Abraham.”

 

“Um. Yes. Hi, Rob,” said Abe eloquently, his fingers beating out a nervous rhythm on the doorframe. “What’re you doing here?”

 

“Who’s Rob?” Ben asked the room at large. He had never seen this man before in his whole… well, not life exactly, but existence. Nobody answered the question.

 

“We didn’t finish the game.” Rob looked as if he was physically stopping himself from running away. “I believe we said best out of three.”

 

Abe frowned. “Yeah, and we said some other things too, remember? Like, I don’t know, ‘get the hell out of here, Woodhull’, and ‘I’ll call the police, I swear to God’.” 

 

Rob winced, shifting his weight a little bit in discomfort. “Yes. Yeah. That happened too.” Something that looked suspiciously like a blush was creeping up his neck. “Look, Abraham-”

 

“Just Abe.”

 

“Right, just Abe. I don’t want you to think that I’m just being rude for the hell of it or anything like that. It’s just that… I don’t know. I don’t know the exact words, but you’re…”

 

“Irritating? Abrasive? Unpleasant?” suggested Abe. “You’ve called me all of those things. Multiple times.”

 

“No!” Rob said loudly, then reigned himself in. “I mean. No. I mean… you  _ are _ those things, but that’s not what I’m talking about.”

 

“Hey, it’s cool,” Abe assured him. “I was coming on to you, you weren’t feeling it- It’s fine, Rob. It doesn’t have to be a big thing. I’m annoying. I get it.”

 

Rob shook his head so hard it looked like it might just pop off. “No. That’s not what I’m. I mean. I don’t… I don’t know what I mean.”

 

“Oh. I do,” said Abe, almost too quiet to be heard, and then Ben got it.

 

“Oh, shit,” he whispered to himself, and didn’t have time to say anything else because some time in between one breath and the next Rob and Abe were  _ kissing _ , and backing up further into the apartment, and kicking off their shoes and taking off their shirts and  _ oh shit _ Ben was getting out of there  _ immediately _ before he saw something that would scar him for eternity. 

 

He got as far away from them as he could, which was Caleb’s apartment, and settled in by his favorite window, the one that looked out across the treetops to the church steeple. He didn’t know why he liked that view so much. Maybe it was because the church reminded him of his father, but the explanation didn’t quite fit. He’d had over a century to grieve and to heal from that loss. He didn’t need reminders of it anymore. 

 

No, it was more like  _ magnetism _ . Two opposite forces attracting. A symbol of heaven, of salvation, and a soul trapped on the mortal plane forever. He wanted what he could not have. It was always at the back of his mind, that little voice, that itch to  _ know _ . What came after this? What would have happened to him, if he hadn’t become the way he was now? Was it better? Was it worse? 

 

Or maybe it really did just remind him of his father. Who could say.

 

Caleb was snoring in the other room, and Ben rolled his eyes, half annoyance and half something that was dangerously approaching fondness. Of fucking course the guy snored. Add it to the list of a million contradictory things that fit together to create Caleb. Ben couldn’t make sense of him. He had been quiet so far, but in a way that seemed like he wasn’t usually that way, like something had happened to him. He was a slob, but his reflexes were at least as fast as Ben’s own. He had an education that he didn’t appear to be using. He seemed lost, even though Setauket was his hometown. 

 

Ben caught himself thinking, in an offhand kind of way, that if Caleb had only been born a couple centuries sooner he would have been a great soldier, and a greater friend. They had needed people like him back in the war. Smart, adaptable, quick on their feet. Ben had thought he’d fit those requirements himself but, he remembered ruefully as he rubbed a particular spot on his chest, he hadn’t been quick enough, or smart enough either. He should have seen it coming, should have seen the gun in Simcoe’s hand, but he hadn’t. Not until it was too late. If Caleb had been there, things might have gone differently.

 

Then he stopped himself. He couldn’t wish that war on anyone- the blood and the muskets and the missing limbs and missing people and panic and constant fear. The mud and infection and rations. The disease and the shitty orders from higher up the chain and the lives lost as a result. Better that Caleb was alive now, in this time, safe and whole, than back in that war with Ben.

 

Right?

 

“Stop getting attached,” he murmured to himself, watching the moonlight get reflected off the church steeple in the distance. “He’s only been here a day.”

 

Only a day. It felt longer. Like a puzzle piece clicking into place, a part of the world that Ben had never known existed because he had never seen it before. Magnetism. 

 

He wanted to watch TV, except Caleb didn’t have one yet. Anna might still be awake, but she would be watching something he didn’t get, like Downton Abbey or Mad Men. He just didn’t have the cultural frame of reference for those shows, trapped as he was in backwoods Long Island. And he certainly wasn’t about to go back downstairs since Abe had a  _ guest _ over. 

 

He stayed the rest of the night on the windowsill, watching the church steeple.

 

In the morning it was like a switch had flipped. Caleb woke up and got dressed quickly, efficiently even, like his body was on autopilot while his mind did something else. The way he spoke to Abe (who was understandably both exhausted by the hour and incredibly embarrassed by the conversation) was exuberant, energetic, lively. He downed a black coffee in under a minute and Ben waited for the reaction, the choking, the coughing, but it didn’t happen. Just a bit of a wince and a wave and he was out the door. It was a very cool move. 

 

_ Add it to the list. _

 

Abe, left alone in the kitchen, slowly sat down, put his head and his hands, and screamed, very quietly. Ben wanted very badly to pat him on the shoulder, but didn’t. The poor guy had had a weird twelve hours. 

 

Rob’s voice came in through the other room, still half asleep. “Are you making coffee?”

 

Abe straightened up with a sigh. “Yeah.”

 

A long pause.

 

“So are you going to-”

 

“Yeah, I’ll make your damn coffee, princess.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

Ben, on the couch, laughed a little bit. He liked this Rob guy; Anyone who could get Abe Woodhull to do something for them was a force to be reckoned with, and alright in his book. It was why he cared so much for Anna.

 

_ Caleb got coffee too _ , his stupid, dead brain reminded him, and he frowned so hard he sunk through the couch and into the basement. By the time he made his way back upstairs, Abe had given up on being a functional human at 5:45 in the morning and gone back into the bedroom. From the sounds of it, the both of them were asleep again. Two mugs of coffee sat on the kitchen counter, slowly going cold. Ben put them in the microwave, because he was nice like that. Abe would probably just assume he had done it himself.

 

Caleb was out somewhere, and the bar was closed on Sundays out of some long standing religious tradition, so Anna wouldn’t even wake up until nearly noon, leaving him with hours upon hours of  _ nothing to do. _ Which shouldn’t have bothered him, really. He was used to doing nothing. He shouldn’t have cared. Except he did.

 

When did he get so attached to these people? He shouldn’t have been hanging around them at all- it was dangerous, too dangerous, especially if one of them caught onto him and decided to have a priest or an exorcist look at the house. He wasn’t even sure if that would work, and definitely wasn’t sure he wanted to risk it. An exorcism probably wouldn’t send him to Heaven (if such a place existed, and he’d had two hundred years for doubt to seep into his mind) and even if it somehow did, he wouldn’t be able to see Anna or Abe or even Caleb again. Not while they were living.

 

It was the  _ living _ part that was most compelling about them. Yes, they were, on the whole, interesting people, and nice enough (in their own way). But what drew Ben to them was their adaptability. Their constantly changing natures and moods and behaviors. They picked up new habits, discarded old ones. Cycled through new fashions and new interests and new technologies. Ben, on the other hand, was stuck. Unchanging. A constant. It was part of being dead, he supposed. He wanted to be with the living because he was dead.

 

Magnetism.

 

Anna knocked on Abe’s door around 11:00. He opened it looking somehow more tired than he had at 5:30.

 

“What’s with you guys and waking me up today?” he asked, deadpan. Anna stared at him.

 

“Since when do you have a shirt like that?”

 

“What?” Abe looked down at the shirt he was wearing. It was collared. “...Fuck.”

 

“Ok,  _ wow, _ ” said Anna, giggling. “That’s hilarious. Are you actually dating someone? Someone who wears collared shirts?”

 

“Why are you here, Anna?”

 

“Do you know what kinds of flowers Mary likes?” The question seemed to stop Abe in his tracks. 

 

“Mary? Like, my ex-girlfriend Mary?” He seemed desperate for clarification. Anna rolled her eyes.

 

“No, the Virgin Mary. Yes, your goddamn ex,” she said, folding her arms. “So come on, help me out here. Daisies? Roses? I’m at a loss.”

 

“I always used to get her tulips,” replied Abe, and then his brain caught up with his mouth. “Wait, why are you getting her flowers?”

 

“Thanks, Abe, you’re a doll,” said Anna, practically running away from him down the stairs. “See you later!”

 

Abe let the door close with a soft  _ click _ , and rested his forehead on it. Ben walked in through the wall and hopped up onto the kitchen counter. 

 

“Who was that?” asked Rob from the living room. A half-played game of checkers was in front of him. Red was winning.

 

“Anna from upstairs,” replied Abe, sitting down on the other side of the board. “I think she’s dating my ex-girlfriend.”

 

“Wow. Rough,” Rob said, deadpan, as one of his red pieces jumped over three of Abe’s black ones to the back end of the board. “King me.”

 

Ben left them to it, going upstairs to his window yet again. He was caught in a loop. A few minutes downstairs for every hour he spent gazing over the treetops. It wasn’t the best use of his practically unlimited time, to be sure, but he really didn’t give a shit. He was dead. He’d earned the right to be lazy.

 

Rob left a couple hours later, leaving behind his phone number and an Abraham Woodhull who had lost two games of checkers in a row. Apparently he didn’t play well when he was flustered. And with Rob not there to distract him, he began to get more and more caught up on the ex-girlfriend thing. Ben mostly just stayed out of his way while he quadruple-texted Anna question marks and vaguely irritated emojis.

 

Caleb got the brunt of it when he got back. 

 

“I think my ex-girlfriends are dating each other.”

 

“...What.”

 

“Anna and Mary. My ex-girlfriends. Are dating each other.”

 

Ben watched, amused, as Caleb neatly sidestepped Abraham and went into his apartment, then snorted in a very undignified way when Abe immediately called him. That guy just didn’t quit. Caleb, for his part, seemed to want to end the conversation (and Abe’s distress) as quickly as possible.

 

“The point is that you don’t  _ have _ a point, Abe. Let them be happy together! Go make out with your not-boyfriend Rob or whatever, I don’t care. Just don’t get hung up on shit that isn’t your business, you know?”

 

Ben nodded appreciatively. 

 

“Good advice,” he said, half to himself and half to Caleb.

  
Caleb heard him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hoo boy


	5. rain and words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Caleb was a kid, he hadn’t been scared of ghosts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh tw for some mentions of rob townsend being fucking gay

When Caleb was a kid, he hadn’t been scared of ghosts. He believed in them, yeah, because most kids did. Because there were ghosts on TV and on cereal boxes and on backpacks. Because he hadn’t yet separated what was true and what the world was telling him. So, yes, in his world, ghosts were real, but they weren’t something to be afraid of. Dead bodies were just things in the ground, which, by an extension of logic, meant that spirits were just things in the air, and as harmless as dust or pollen. 

 

He thought he saw one once when he was in high school. He was riding his bike home after school, passing by the church graveyard, and there was a child sitting on a gravestone looking up at the sky. He stared at it for a few seconds, wondering if he should go over there. Kids shouldn’t be playing in graveyards at night. It wasn’t safe. He called out, concerned, and the child turned towards him. He could still remember the strange rash, like chicken pox, that was creeping across its face. Then he blinked and the vision was gone and he told himself it was the high school stress getting to him.

 

The memory, and the feeling that went with it, was still in his head that night as he looked down at his charging phone. It was a very particular and specific feeling that he didn’t know how to describe. It was like reading someone else’s diary mixed with being in someone’s home while they themselves were absent. It was something he hadn’t been supposed to see, somewhere he was never supposed to go. A line had been crossed that should have been uncrossable. An invasion of privacy and of the rules of nature.

 

(It had been a man’s voice over the phone and Caleb was not stupid but he didn’t want to jump to conclusions and he really, really wanted to know if it had been who he thought it was).

 

Slowly, millimeter by millimeter, he relaxed again. Nothing had happened besides that. Nothing had been thrown at his head. No screaming demon had thrown him out of a window. The Devil hadn’t appeared and nobody’s heads were spinning around. It was fine. If he was going to open this can of ghost-worms and start believing in the supernatural or whatever, at least he could be reasonably confident that this ghost was as incompetent at being dead as Caleb was at being alive.

 

His phone rang and he lept about a foot in the air before calming himself down enough to answer it.

 

“Hello?” There was no static on the line, but his voice was still cautious, hesitant.

 

“Hi, is this Caleb Brewster?” 

 

“Abby?” he asked. 

 

He could hear the smile in her voice. “The one and only. I’m just calling to tell you that we’d be happy to hire you. I know it’s a little bit sudden, but we’ve- well,  _ I’ve  _ decided to fast track your application, seeing how short we are on staff right now. Would you be willing to come in starting on Tuesday?” She took a breath. “Ugh, sorry, that was a lot to lay on you all at once. You can take your time getting back to me if you want.”

 

Caleb shook his head even though she couldn’t see him. “No, no, that’s fine. That’s  _ great _ , yeah, I can be in on Tuesday. Thank you so much.”

 

“It’s no problem, Caleb,” she replied. “I’m glad to have you on the team.” She hung up and he dropped his phone back on the couch, a smile spreading across his face. He did that. He had a good job and an apartment and-

 

A ghost. Right. Back to the point.

 

He didn’t think he necessarily wanted to get rid of whatever- or whoever- it was. It didn’t appear particularly malicious, and had even given him a compliment. Kind of. Plus, it had probably been here much longer than he had, and it would just be  _ rude _ to kick it out because he couldn’t handle a little bit of creepiness. 

 

And actually, why was he just sitting here deliberating with himself on whether the spirit was good or bad when he could just… ask it? He looked around the room. It was pretty standard, for a living room. Shitty couch. Wobbly coffee table. Bare hardwood. It both looked ridiculously mundane and also stereotypically haunted at the same time. Or maybe he was projecting.

 

“Um,” he began. “Uh. So. I know there’s someone else in here.” The room did not respond, and he sighed. “God, this is fucking stupid. I’m crazy. Stress is getting to me. I’m so goddamn crazy.” He rested his head in his hands for a second, elbows on knees, the only thing in front of his eyes the black-red of his eyelids. Something in the apartment creaked and he froze, not moving, not daring to lift his head up. It was the same kind of instinct that rabbits and small children had-  _ if I can’t see it and I don’t move, it can’t see me _ . 

 

The noise continued. There were clinking sounds. Scratching. A click. Caleb kept his eyes screwed up tight. There was that feeling again, like the one he’d had when he saw that child in the graveyard. Whatever was happening right now, it was not for him to see or know. To look now, even if there was a gun being held to his head, would be intrinsically  _ wrong _ somehow. 

 

After about a minute and a half, the apartment went silent again. Caleb raised his head slowly, half afraid and half filled with a kind of morbid curiosity. What was even going on right now? He’d gotten a job five minutes ago. And now there was something messing around with his house. 

 

There was a piece of paper and a pen lying on the table. He pulled the paper toward himself and turned it around. There was writing on it. Shaky cursive, like whoever wrote it hadn’t held a pen in a long time. Which of course a fucking ghost wouldn’t have. Caleb had to stop himself from laughing in a hysterical, panicked kind of way. 

 

_ You’re not crazy. Sorry for distressing you _ , said the note (said the ghost).  _ I can stay out of your way now. Again, I am very apologetic. _

 

Caleb read the note once. Then again to make sure he had understood it. Then a third time because why the hell not. Then he pinched himself. Then he read it again. It was real. It was a real note. He was really awake and really communicating with a fucking dead person right now. 

 

“Okay,” he said out loud, and was proud of his voice for not cracking. “Thanks for this. I think. And, uh… don’t be sorry, man. If you’re a man. I don’t know. Man or lady. It’s cool. And y’know, some ladies don’t mind if you call them man. It’s pretty gender neutral and  _ wow _ , I’m rambling right now. Okay. Back on track. You don’t have to be- what does this say, sorry, hang on… Oh, yeah,  _ apologetic _ . Word escaped me there. I moved in here like two days ago. I’m the one who should be sorry for getting in your way.” He fiddled with the note aimlessly for a second, staring at the looping handwriting. “Just keep doing your thing, dude. I’m, uh, like 85% sure I’m dreaming right now anyway.”

 

There was no response, except maybe the tiniest of sounds, like someone letting out a sigh. He might have been imagining it, but then again, maybe he wasn’t. Who knew anymore. He waited for something to happen- exactly what, he didn’t know, but this moment seemed incredibly important in a way he had never experienced before. He got the feeling that “keep doing your thing, dude,” was not the standard response to finding out something was haunting your apartment, and that said  _ something _ had not been expecting it at all. 

 

“Listen, I’d love to stay and chat,” he continued, “but I’ve had kind of a crazy day and I’d like to just go to bed and figure all this out in the morning.” He didn’t wait for a response before getting up and going into his bedroom, shutting the door behind him (as if that would do anything). He fell asleep instantly and dreamed that it was raining.

 

Or at least, he thought it was raining. There was a low murmur in the back of his head that sounded almost like water dropping onto the ground, a steady wall of white noise. Just as soon as it occurred to him that the sound might be a voice speaking words, he woke up.

 

Caleb stared up at the ceiling for a few minutes, not daring to move or get up.  _ Did that really happen? Was that real? _ Was there a ghost in his house? Christ, it felt ridiculous to even think it. Maybe he’d dreamed the whole thing. He’d never had a lucid dream before, but there was always a first time for everything. Maybe he’d just cracked under the stress of his uncle dying, and moving back to Setauket, and finding work and dealing with Abe’s relationship problems. It was a nice thought.

 

But it wasn’t true. The slip of paper he’d been given last night was on the nightstand where he’d left it, curly handwriting plain as day. He groaned, loudly. 

 

“Fuck.”

 

He peeked his head out of the bedroom cautiously, and when nothing abnormal happened he came all the way out, fully dressed, grabbing his keys and slipping on his shoes almost in one motion before leaving the apartment. He needed some fresh air- more space to think, without the weird, irrational paranoia that he’d made a drastic miscalculation and was about to get his ass kicked by a ghost.

 

It was a beautiful day outside. Warm for fall, but still chilly enough for a light jacket. Not a cloud in the sky. Birds singing, and all of that. It was incredibly distracting, really. He checked his pocket and found a twenty (his last twenty) and decided that fuck it, he’d gotten a job yesterday, he was gonna get breakfast.

 

The nearest restaurant to his apartment was a cute bed and breakfast kind of place, complete with actual curtains and welcome mat and a hand painted sign on the door right next to a blue plaque marking it as a historical building. Townsend Inn itself was new, but the building was even older than Caleb’s. He went in and sat down and ordered scrambled eggs.

 

“We’re out of eggs,” said the guy serving him. He had reddish hair and the aura like he’d rather jump off a bridge than keep being a waiter.

 

“What?”

 

“That jackass in the corner ordered like twelve.” The guy pointed and Caleb turned to look. Abe was sitting at a corner table, not even eating his food, just sitting with his feet up on the chair next to him, texting. He seemed to feel the eyes on him and looked up, then gave the two of them a little wave. The waiter sighed. “I hate him.”

 

His nametag said  _ Rob _ . Caleb understood.

 

“I guess I’ll just have pancakes, then,” he decided, and Rob nodded. 

 

“Great. At least it’s not eggs.” Rob took his menu and left. Caleb could see through the window in the kitchen door and watched in mild amusement as the man took out his phone, read a text, smiled for a split second, then snapped his mask back into place. 

 

_ They’re a good match. They balance each other out _ , Caleb thought approvingly. What was that old saying again? Opposites attract? Yeah. It was sweet.

 

He ate his pancakes (which were really good, and very reasonably priced) and tipped as much as his budget would allow, purely because this guy had to experience both Abe Woodhull and Caleb Brewster in his restaurant at the same time. Then he went back out into the sunshine and was hit yet again with the realization that his apartment was fucking haunted.

 

What was he even supposed to do about that? How was he supposed to behave? Was he supposed to ignore the ghost, or talk to it, or what? What if he offended it somehow? Well, not  _ it _ .  _ Them _ . They were definitely a person. 

 

_ That is exactly the kind of shit that could offend them,  _ he admonished himself. The wind picked up a little bit, and even though the sky was blue, there was the unmistakeable smell of rain in the air. He pulled his jacket tighter around himself and started walking home, still mulling it over. He could treat it like having a roommate, probably. Normalize it. It didn’t have to be weird. He didn’t have to make this weird.

 

He sighed. It was gonna be weird no matter what he did. Might as well get used to it.

  
He was Caleb  _ fucking _ Brewster. He could do this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one was really hard to write and i dont know why maybe bc its like an in-between kind of chapter?? it's bridging the two halves of this fic so after this things shld take on a slightly different tone

**Author's Note:**

> aaa first of all thank you for reading this
> 
> second of all HUGE shoutout to schuylerelizas/washingtonspies on tumblr for 1. being perfect and great and a human turn encyclopedia and 2. for letting me pitch this idea to her and 3. for coming up with the title and 4. for being a great friend and ally in these trying times
> 
> also thanks to annastrong/schvylers for supporting this idea too!!!


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